February 17th, 2010 11:53pm

I haven't been updating this very much lately, as you may have noticed. I try to tell myself that it is because I am either too tired or too busy. Neither is accurate, honestly.

I just either have no news, or I have complaints, and neither one is a terribly interesting read.

Ken is doing quite well. He is doing more and more. He can walk around the house very well, but still can not do stairs. Even the step into the garage from the house takes several moments of focused coordination. His right arm is doing better as well. He still does not use it for anything, but he can move it a lot more than he could before. When I say, "Ken why not hold the bottle with your right hand while you try to open it?", he looks at his right hand confused, and seems surprised that it is there. He looks up at me and says, "I forgot it was there." Actually what he says is, "the lef one is on okay but did know that when left was there forgot and to use it." His speech has gotten a little better, but not much. It is slow going. The best way to describe it is that he has the vocabulary of roughly a 4 year old. Quantities still confuse him i.e. is 100 more or less than 1000 . . . is 4 months a long time . . . things like that. He still does not understand if Monday comes before Wednesday, he calls both dogs Yodie, he can't tell time, he doesn't know his numbers, days of week or months. He takes 18 prescriptions each day, two of which have a side effect of depression, and several that cause constipation. We get up twice during the night to take pills. I haven't slept more than 6 hours since October.

I keep thinking back to this party we went to at Christmas time. Ken really wanted to go even though he had only been out of the hospital for about a week. It was at the house of two of our DEAREST friends, and we have been to every Christmas party they have had for, I think, the last 8 or 9 years. Ken said he didn't want to miss it.

At this time in December, he couldn't walk, and his speech impairment was pretty severe. I remember I wheeled Ken in, and he felt so good seeing old friends. Then this guy walked up to Ken and started talking about how he had a stroke, too, in October almost the exact time that Ken had his. This guy was standing up, walking perfectly, dressing himself, speaking clearly, wiping his own ass, and was telling Ken about how hard his experience was. Really?? You both had a stroke at the same time, and you're up and walking and talking, and Ken is still in a wheelchair in front of you, and you're telling him how bad it was for you??? Ken asked if we could go home, cried the whole way back to the house, and took almost a week to get over it.

I've been getting more and more un-motivated. I still have eye appointments to make for Ken and social security paperwork to fill out, but I'm not doing it. I don't know why. I feel all I do is go to work, pay bills, fill out forms, clean the house, fill prescriptions, prepare meals, do laundry blah blah blah blah . . .